The sign on the glass window of the roadside fruit and vegetable stall read:

FRESH TOMATOES! PICKED TODAY!

Reece pulled over in his car. There was little tastier than a tomato that had not been in the mass-production cooler. Nothing took the taste away faster than making them cold to keep them fresh.

But the roadside stall was closed. Starlings had entered through a broken back door. Nesting straw, twigs, and waste, were scattered all about. The stall looked like it had been abandoned for a good three or four years; the vendor long gone; the family business crumbled under competition from the mass-producing-cold-store supermarkets. No one wanted to eat food these days that had its taste. Processed vegetables, fruit, even milk, were poor imitations of the real things.

The only fresh-looking item was the old sign on the glass window of the roadside fruit and vegetable stall: